Distinguished Contributor Recognition Program

The IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Contributor Recognition Program is open to both IEEE CS Members and Affiliates and recognizes those members who have made technical contributions, through either applied or pure computing, to the Computing Profession, Computing Community, and Humanity with a significant portion of those technical contributions made through association with the CS.

This is a recognition program and should not be confused with the IEEE member grades of Senior and Fellow.

IEEE Computer Society Fellows are automatically recognized as Distinguished Contributors in honor of their exceptional service and leadership.

For any additional questions, please email  membership@computer.org

• At the time of application submission, the Applicant must have a minimum of 10 cumulative years of IEEE Computer Society membership, with at least five being consecutive.
• Student membership years excluded.
• A minimum of 100 total points from eligible technical contributions.
• At least 50 points must come from association with IEEE Computer Society Activities. T

Applicants not meeting these thresholds will automatically be excluded.

• Application window 0pens 16 May 2026
• Application closes 11:59 PM ET 24 July 2026
• Review:  Rolling as applications are received. 
• Notifications no later than  3 weeks after application submission
• Plaques mailed after all reviews completed.

Applications meeting membership and points criteria are reviewed, evaluated, and scored by members of the review committee and then submitted to the program selection committee, who prepare the final list of successful applicants for recognition as Distinguished Contributors.

The number of members recognized in a calendar year is limited to 0.5% of the total IEEE Computer Society Membership.

Evaluation of contributions are made in the following areas:*

• Keynotes and Presentations
• Publications
• Papers Presented
• Standards, Patents, Working Groups, Technical Advisory Group Membership
• Tutorials and Training
• Change Management, Corporate Contributions, Other Engineering

*Proper documentation is required, such as URLs to pages documenting awards or publications.

Members who have achieved the IEEE member grade of Fellow or have received a major CS technical award, who have met the minimum length of membership requirement, are automatically recognized as Distinguished Contributors.

All awards must be explicit awards granted by organizations and conferences and documented by the specific conference or organization presenting the award. Citation counts must be verifiable by a site such as Google Scholar. No more than 50 points will be awarded through any specific scoring group.

Citation counts must be verifiable by a site such as Google Scholar. No more than 50 points will be awarded through any specific scoring group.

• Level 3 Keynotes (25 points each/Maximum 2 Keynotes)
  Keynote presented at a major international conference or one with more than 1,000 attendees.
• Level 2 Keynote Talks (15 points each/Maximum 4 talks)
  Keynote presented at a major national-level conference or one with more than 100 attendees.
• Level 1 Keynote Talks (5 points each/Maximum 4 talks)
  Keynote presented at a regional conference or one with more than 50 attendees.
• Conference Presentation (w/out paper) or panelist at conference/workshop/symposium(2 points each/Maximum 15 presentations)
  For contributing your knowledge by presenting or serving as a panelist.
• Computer Society Chapter Talks (2 points each/Maximum 20 talks)
  For sharing your depth of knowledge with a local Computer Society Members.

NOTE: Presentations given at a higher level than required are acceptable for listing in a lesser category. For example, if an applicant were to have had 6 keynote talks at regional conferences, they could submit 5 in the regional conference group and the remaining 1 in the Conference Presentation group.

• Test of Time Award (20 points each/Maximum 3 awards) For papers in the field of computing presented at conferences more than 10 years ago, with more than 100 attendees, that continue to have a substantial impact on the field of computing, including both research and practice
• Best Paper Award (5 points each/Maximum 5 awards) For papers in the field of computing submitted at conferences with more than 50 attendees.
• Author or co-author of a conference publication focused on a topic or topics within the field of computing (pure or applied) (3 points each/Maximum 15 papers)

Papers Cited

• Highly Cited Papers (25 points each/Maximum 2 papers) For papers published in the field of computing that have been cited more than 400 times.
• Well-Cited Papers (15 points each/Maximum 4 papers) For papers published in the field of computing that have been cited between 200-399 times.
• Cited Papers (5 points each/Maximum 4 papers) For papers published in the field of computing that have been cited between 10 and 199 times

NOTE: Papers cited in a greater number of citations than required are acceptable for listing in a lesser category. For example, if a person were to have 6 papers cited more than 200 times, they could submit 4 in the well-cited group and the remaining 2 in the cited papers group.

All awards must be explicit awards granted by conferences and documented by the conference presenting the award. Citation counts must be verifiable by a site such as Google Scholar.

• Author or co-author of a book focused on a topic or topics within the field of computing (pure or applied) (20 points each/Maximum 3 books)
  • Book Chapter focused on a topic or topics within the field of computing (pure or applied) (10 points each/Maximum 3 chapters)
  • Article Publication For articles focused on a topic or topics within the field of computing (pure or applied), published in recognized research journals or magazines. (4 points each/Maximum 12 articles)
  • Author or co-author of a conference publication focused on a topic or topics within the field of computing (pure or applied) (3 points each/Maximum 15 papers)

• Standards Working Group Chair (20 points)
  For contributions made as the chair of a standard focused on a topic or topics within the field of computing (pure or applied).
• Standards Author (10 points each/Maximum 3 standards)
  For contributions made as an author to a Standard focused on a topic or topics within the field of computing (pure or applied)
• Advisory Group (20 points each/ Maximum two appointments)
  Computing Contributions made by being appointed to a significant Government, Industry or Academic advisory group that are ongoing and have a specified outcome or product. Appointments can either be internal or external to the IEEE Computer Society.

• Distinguished Visitors (15 points)
  For IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor with a minimum of 3 online and/or in-person visits or presentations during their term.

• Dataset Creation (10 points each/Maximum 5 datasets)
  For creating a widely-used dataset focused on a topic or topics within the field of computing (pure or applied) that others can use in their research or studies.
• Patents Granted (5 points each/Maximum 10 patents)
  For recognition of patents granted on software, computing device, or other device where computational capability is a major component.
• New Product (20 points each/ Maximum 3 products)
  For recognition for the development of a new computing device, or other device of which the computational capability is a major component, that successfully went to market or into wide use.
• Creation, Development, or Extension of widely-used software (10 points each/ Maximum 5 software packages)
  For recognition of software contributions to packages that are widely-used, including open-source software, commercial software, etc.

• In-Person/Online Courses or Tutorials (10 points each/Maximum 5 courses or tutorials)
  For the development of educational courses/tutorials to assist in skills development in computer hardware and software, including language and programming, and also significant computer applications.
• Industry Technical Training (15 points total)
  For significantly contributing to the delivery of an industry technical training in a field covered by the IEEE Computer Society.

• Corporate Contributions (15 points)
  For recognition by industry for technical achievement in a field covered by the IEEE Computer Society.
• Engineering Contributions (15 points)
  For engineering contributions you have made that might not fit into the other areas already listed above, in a field covered by the IEEE Computer Society.
• Change Management (15 points)
  For contributions to change management. Must demonstrate significant contribution to updating / keeping one or more companies or government entities technologically current.
• Significant Recognition (15 points)
  Significant recognition received for engineering management (may be demonstrated through a company award/letter detailing contributions to technical management).

IEEE Computer Society Fellows are automatically recognized as Distinguished Contributors in honor of their exceptional service and leadership.

• Aftabjahani, Seyed-Abdollah (Sohrab)
• Anastasi, Giuseppe
• Benoit, Anne
• Bradford, Phillip
• Engelmann, Christian
• Giles, Ellis
• Haindl, Michal
• Khaidarov, Andrei
• Koduri, Srinivas
• Kuflik, Tsvi
• Kun, Luis
• Li, Sheng
• Liang, Weifa
• Liu, Yuhong
• Lofstead, Jay
• Athanassoulis, Manoussos-Gavriil
• Mattmann, Chris
• Mattoccia, Stefano
• Misra, Prasant Kumar
• Mniszewski, Sue
• Ofek, Eyal
• Padliya, Tejas
• Perrouin, Gilles
• Picek, Stjepan
• Schneider, Joerg
• Sengupta, Anirban
• Tominaga, Shoji
• Tsoumakas, Grigorios
• Venkataramani, Guru Prasadh
• Vetter, Ronald
• Wan Mohd Isa, Wan Abdul Rahim